


Strangers Like Me

by Ihateallergies



Series: Fem!Sam Wilson-verse [2]
Category: Avengers, Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Awesome Sam Wilson, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Character of Color, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Female Character of Color, Friends to Lovers, Rule 63, Slow Burn, Tags to be added, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Work In Progress, acquaintances to friends, discontinued, fem!sam wilson
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 06:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3518711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ihateallergies/pseuds/Ihateallergies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They find Bucky but he's been recaptured by Hydra.</p><p>This is gonna be a long Bucky healing fic with Winter Falcon endgame. Also, Sam's a woman. Imagine Nicole Beharie.</p><p>Angsty-ish sequel to the humor fic I wrote called Candy Crush.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"I can get close to him!" Sam yells into her comm. It is a warm spring day in New York, almost a year after this first happened, and Bucky has been recaptured by Hydra. He's going after Steve and Natasha with all he's got, but he only ever defends against Sam. He doesn't even try to pull her from the sky.

"Try cognitive recalibration," Natasha offers. She has taken refuge behind a flipped truck that says 'Carlo's Bakery' on the side, tying off a bloody gash on her arm.

"What?" Sam asks doing an aerial flyby. Barnes eyes her warily from behind his face mask.

"She means hit in the head. Hard," Steve clarifies. He has long since given up trying to protect either of them from each other, now that he is neither of them will use deadly force.

She laughs a little. "I can do that." Barnes is on a nearby rooftop with a bazooka pointed at Steve's cover spot. She swoops in toward him, aiming with the balls of her feet towards Bucky's head. "This is for that time at the Super 8," she mutters so that Steve and Natasha can hear.

Then, Sam's ears are ringing, her skin is singed and she is falling from the sky. For a moment, she is convinced that Bucky turned that bazooka on her, but she hadn't seen him move. She lands two roofs over from him in a roll, gravel biting into her bare arms. Her breath is gone and she feels bruised everywhere, and maybe her ribs are sprained, but otherwise she is fine as regains her bearings.

Her hearing comes back last. "Falcon?!" Steve calls. "Report!"

"A little worse for wear, but I'm good, Cap," she says, pulling herself to her feet. "Was that Barnes?"

"No," Natasha answers. "I had my eyes on him. He was watching Steve behind that overturned semi the whole time."

"Then who shot me?" She asks as she inspects her wings. They are alright, if a little blackened. She makes a mental note thank Stark; a blast like that would have at least damaged the previous model. "I thought Barnes was alone."

"He isn't."

Sam turns around in an instant, collapsable twin Steyrs aimed at the voice. Who she sees is a burn victim with a grisly smile on his face. He has his own sub-machine gun pointed at her, though his body language is almost relaxed.

"Wilson," he greets. "Long time no see."

Sam feels her eyebrows furrow slightly as she adjusts her grips on her guns. "Do I know you?"

He chuckles darkly. "I admit I do look a little different than I did before. I have you to thank for that."

"You're gonna have to be more specific, man," Sam says.

He pulls what must be a pout, but it comes off a lot more sinister than it should. "You're gonna give a guy a complex, Wilson," he says. "We had a date. The Triskellion. Last year. You left me to die as the building collapsed around us?"

"Rumlow," she says to him and to The Cap and Widow through her comm. That's not how she remembers the incident at all. She remembers him betraying his team and kicking her ass. Like she was going to warn him.

"Got it one."

"So what is this then? A rematch?"

"Revenge for what you did to me," he says.

Sam looks at him for a moment. "You said it yourself, Rumlow. 'Order comes from pain.' The way I see it is I gave you a lot of order."

He opens fire on her.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam returns the fire as she runs behind a large air vent. She stops to reload.

"Falcon? Sam? Are you alright?" Steve asks.

"Old Kinderhook, Cap," Sam says, grinning slightly. She can't see him but she knows he rolls his eyes at that because he always does.

"Don't engage Rumlow," he commands. "I'm on my way."

"He's not giving me much choice, Cap," she says in between sporadically returning shots. "I think he blames me for the Triskelion falling on top of him." She returns more fire. "Don't worry about me, Cap. Get Barnes. I've got this."

"...Copy." She hears the disapproval in his voice, but she's glad he respects her wishes. She knows why he's hesitant; last time, Rumlow outmatched her but last time, she was a retired pararescuer and he was an active Shield agent. After nearly a year of training with them, she knows she can hold her own now.

"You know, Rumlow, I am a counselor. I can help you with all that misplaced anger." Her current cover is failing so she ducks and rolls to another vent, shooting wildly all the while so he doesn't get a clear safe shot.

To her surprise, he doesn't fire back. "That's what I'm hoping, Wilson." He throws his gun to the gravel and steps out from his own hiding spot. "Come out and face me, Falcon. Let's see how you do without a falling Helicarrier. We both know you were losing."

Sam has half a magazine left in each gun. It's not much, but it's enough to end Rumlow now that he's out in the open challenging her. She could end this now and focus on Bucky. She should end this now, it would be the smart thing to do. That's why she's so surprised when she finds herself stowing her weapons and stepping out. She must be spending too much time with Steve. This is something he'd do.

Sam reads people well. It's useful tool when her day job is calming people down. It's also useful when she has to wind people up. "Hey, man, I'm a social worker. Says more about you that you couldn't beat me instantly."

"Shut the hell up!" He shouts as he charges her. She grins like a shark as she feels all her training with Natasha kick in.

Samantha Wilson is all of 5'2". It's useful in flying; she was the quickest and most agile pararescuer. It's not so useful in a fight with a 6 foot something Hydra agent with a grudge. That's why she learned to fight from Natasha. She now knows how to use her opponents weight against them.

Sam ducks under the punch, glad she trained with the wing pack on half the time. Rumlow follows up with a punch from his left hand and she grabs it, pulling him farther forward than he expected, but he doesn't fall. In an effort to stay standing, he locks up one of his knees and she swings behind him and kicks it, making him crumple to his knees. He grabs her by the forearm and sends her skidding across the roof on the balls of her feet almost like she's skating.

"You've trained with the Black Widow." He says, grisly smile stretching the burns on his face. "So have I."

Rumlow is after Sam again, faster this time and the punch connects to her shoulder. She swings at him with her left hand, he catches it but she's already following up with a right hook and clips his head. He twists her caught arm and she moves her body to relieve the stress and now she has her back to him. He's taller than her, so she has to jump, but she head butts him in the nose using all of her weight. She feels more than hears the grisly crunch of cartilage breaking under the force of her head. He kicks her away with a yell.

She falls to her hands and knees and feels the gravel dig into her palms. He kicks her side and Sam is thinks at least one rib is broken with that kick alone. She tries to catch her breath and nearly chokes with the pain of it. Yes, one definitely is broken. She curl her left arm over it protectively as she struggles to stand.

Rumlow kicks her down before she can stand again and she groans and falls. He is about stomp her but she grabs her knife and thrusts it through his boot, letting him do all the work.

He yanks his foot free and limps backward a few steps. He glares down at her like a nightmare with his broken, gushing nose and bloody teeth bared in a snarl.

"I've lost sight of Barnes," Sam hears Natasha say in her ear.

"Me, too... Shit, Sam get out of there," Steve says. 

Even if she could fly more than a few feet without jostling her ribs, it's a bit late for that. She edges away from an advancing Rumlow but then she sees a silver hand and Barnes is pulling himself over the side of the building. "Can't." She says, biting off a groan. "How about you guys come to me?"

Rumlow pauses his advance when he sees Bucky approach. "Asset. Did you take care of your targets?"

He shakes his head no.

"Then what are you doing here? Take them out," he instructs.

Bucky shakes his head again. "She's my mission."

Sam feels her stomach plummet. He'd been avoiding her the whole fight. If he suddenly remembered that he is supposed to kill her, she might not survive til the Calvary comes.

"I told you not to kill her," Rumlow says.

Bucky nods in agreement. "My mission, don't kill Samantha Wilson."

Rumlow looks like he's about to argue, but thinks better of trying to reason with a brainwashed assassin. "Fall back for reprogramming."

A single shot rings out and a bullet embeds itself into Rumlow's arm. The three on the roof turn to see the Black Widow scale the wall easily, gun still pointed at her former teammate and another pointed at Bucky Barnes.

Sam uses the distraction to pull herself to her feet, though her ribs are agonizing and her palms are now bleeding. She doesn't know when, but somehow Bucky situated himself between her and Rumlow.

"Nix that last order, Asset. Complete your other missions," Rumlow says just Captain America pulls himself over the side of the building. He mutters something into his comm that Sam can't quite catch and curses loudly. He uses a pistol strapped to his thigh and shoots at Steve and Natasha. Each bullet hits the shield, but it serves adequately as the distraction it is. When Steve lowers his shield, Rumlow is gone.

Both of Natasha's guns are now pointed at Barnes and he has a knife drawn and ready to use against either of them.

"Bucky. Listen." Steve takes off his helmet. "You know me."

"You're my mission."

Steve shakes his head, stepping in front of Natasha now. "You're my best friend, Buck."

"No, you're my..." Bucky groans and closes his eyes. It's deathly silent on the rooftop as they wait for him to decide exactly what Steve is. After what could have been minutes or hours, he finally says, "...My mission," voice steadier than before. He aims the knife.

Sam has one of her Steyrs out with the butt of the gun aimed at Bucky's head. She uses a little burst from her wing pack to give her the strength she's physically unable to provide and bashes him on the head. The knife drops, followed by Bucky and Sam brings up the rear, yelping as she lands.

She takes a few shallow breaths. "Cognitive recalibration, right?"


End file.
